Rejection (or acceptance, or notification) season was winding down as it neared time to gear up for submission season, and I hadn’t written my usual post on how to cope with it. Maybe it’s because the rejections/passes/whathaveyou just seemed to come in dribs and drabs this year—it’s a rare week that I don’t get at least one—but the last big notifications of the season were still looming, including the Lark. By the time my Lark rejection came—a pleasant and gracious form letter signed by the Director of Scouting and Submissions—it seemed like we’d all been waiting for it a long time. And so I posted to the Official Playwrights of Facebook: “Aaaand there’s the Lark rejection. Anybody get lucky?”

Admittedly, the Lark’s was much nicer, but without friends, isn’t this how we might feel?

The idea? Commiseration, support, and, with any luck, celebration for a lucky playwright on our list. What happened was kind extraordinary. Everybody started posting that they’d gotten their rejection/pass, but that the sting was lessened because they knew it was coming, or because they were sharing the loss with so many comrades. One by one, the comments came in, “Me too!” “Rejected!” “Just got mine.” There was strange sort of pride in being able to post that the email had arrived, and from that emerged solidarity, even a hashtag or two. People who hadn’t submitted wished they’d had, just to able to join in (to you all, I say, “Next year!” Always submit!). One of my favorite comments came from David Lee White, who said, “I’m not trying to brag but I also got rejected by Ashland and New Dramatists.” The atmosphere was… festive.

In short, our collective rejection turned into collaborative comfort, with a lot of good humor and support, but nary a hint of dejection. A pity party? Not at all, but a party nonetheless. At the time of this posting, there are 83 comments and they’re still coming. I couldn’t have written a post that did a better job of showing how best to cope with rejection than this, which essentially illustrates more than anything I could or have written that the best part of being a playwright is the community, because they’ll be there in good times—and in bad. And that, all by itself, is a success worth being part of.

Donna HokeJohn I don’t mean to imply that it isn’t good news for Cassie, but it seems to me that the norm is to let the winners know first, and then inform the rest of the crowd. There’ve been quite few things where I’ve known long before the email (or snail mail) came that I wasn’t in simply because I knew someone else who was.

David Lee White Just got email. It was actually a play that I wound up workshopping with some other folks in NY back in March. So it’s not a loss in terms of development but I would like to get in there at some point. The best part was that somehow reading Donna’s initial post before getting the email made it much less unpleasant than it would have been otherwise.

Jean Hartley Sidden I went to the event last year and heard the finalists and the readers who fought for them and why, which was interesting because while I didn’t think the plays stunk or anything, I didn’t think they were the next Pulitzer Prize winners either. So subjective. I’ll probably try again – they have such a great process.

Robin Rice Lichtig I was told that that’s what your play needs at The Lark. I know that the year I made it there was a woman on the reading committee who absolutely adored my play and fought for it all along the line.

Jean Hartley Sidden The Lark Play Development center and they will start next years submission process pretty soon. In NYC and they give the playwright a chance to work with a director and cast over a period of time before they have their readings event. The actors are very good and I must say put 1000% percent into the reading so the play gets every conceivable shot to come across well.

Jeff Stolzer I got mine, too. I typically go to a couple of the readings of plays that were selected in a given year and sometimes they are excellent and other times awful (which leaves me scratching my head). But it’s a great organization (no submission fee, unlike the O’Neill and Sundance) and this is all very subjective and tastes differ. To quote the great Annie Baker: “Just keep submitting and submit to everything.”

Katie Pollock Ha, I was just looking through my submissions the other day and wondering when this would come around. Thanks for the soft warning Donna. Haven’t got my rejection yet, but maybe it takes longer to get all the way to Australia?!!

Robin Rice Lichtig The reason I have continued to submit to The Lark is that the roundtable decompression day with all the writers, directors, and Lark big wigs around a table talking about the plays was the most intelligent and stimulating post-show or post-readings session I’ve ever experienced.

Tess Light Rejected. But I tricked them — I figured out weeks ago that if the event is in only about 6 weeks, and I hadn’t heard, then they were probably already contacting the winners and I wasn’t one so… I *pre-emptively colored it red* on my spreadsheet. That’ll show ’em: I moved on *before* they rejected me. Ha!

Jean Hartley Sidden This is great. I wake up in the morning and the guests are still arriving at the party. Donna Hoke wants to blog about it – go for it. This is much better than getting rejected alone!

Scott SicklesI’ve been submitting more this year than ever, yet sometimes I have to go and look up the places I’ve submitted to in order to discover the contest/festival/whatever rejected me without telling me.This happens a lot!…See More

Donna HokeScott That is the overwhelming majority and often I only find out because someone else got in.

Hal CorleyMine startled me, only because I thought I was Lark-rejected in the spring; it was last year’s I was recalling. Time flies when you are a playwright. Except when it doesn’t.

Jean Hartley SiddenIt took such a long time that I also thought it was a no show as far as notification went. I’ll try again this submission period – have another play to send but now I know it’ll take almost a year to get word.

Eric PfeffingerI haven’t weighed in before this point because I’d been politely asked to refrain from announcing anything until all the notifications were made, but I’m happy to report that I’m among the playwrights fortunate enough to be invited to participate in Playwrights Week. Have never worked with the Lark before and am looking forward to it big-time.

Ian ThalThanks, Rick, for the clarification. It was when they were filling about half the slots with recommendations but not being sufficiently transparent that that was the case that aroused mistrust — especially since there was money involved.

Dramatists Guild Council member and ensemble playwright-in-residence at Road Less Traveled Productions, Kilroys List and award-winning playwright Donna Hoke’s work has been seen in 43 states, and on five continents. Her full-length plays include ELEVATOR GIRL (2017 O’Neill finalist), THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR (Princess Grace semi-finalist, currently in its fourth year in rep in Romania), SEEDS (Artie award winner for Outstanding New Play), SAFE (winner of the Todd McNerney, Naatak, and Great Gay Play and Musical Contests), and BRILLIANT WORKS OF ART (2016 Kilroys List, Winner HRC Showcase, Firehouse Festival of New American Plays); she’s also authored more than two dozen short plays that have had hundreds of productions, and has been nominated for both the Francesca Primus and Susan Blackburn prizes. Donna is also a New York Times-published crossword puzzle constructor; author of Neko and the Twiggets, a children’s book; and founder/co-curator of BUA Takes 10: GLBT Short Stories. For three consecutive years, she was named Buffalo’s Best Writer by Artvoice, the only woman to ever receive the designation.

In addition, Donna is a blogger, advocate, and moderator of the 11,000+-member Official Playwrights of Facebook. Recent speaking engagements include Citywrights, Kenyon Playwrights Conference, the Dramatists Guild National Conference, Chicago Dramatists, and a live Dramatists Guild webinar. Her commentary has been read at #2amt, howlround, the Official Playwrights of Facebook, the newly released Workshopping the New Play, and donnahoke.com.